How to format your references using the Acta Geotechnica citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Geotechnica. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Sohn E (2015) Screening: Don’t look now. Nature 527:S118-9

A journal article with 2 authors

Toyoshima C, Nomura H (2002) Structural changes in the calcium pump accompanying the dissociation of calcium. Nature 418:605–611

A journal article with 3 authors

Boyd R, Gintis H, Bowles S (2010) Coordinated punishment of defectors sustains cooperation and can proliferate when rare. Science 328:617–620

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Zhang C-L, Zou Y, He W, et al (2008) A role for adult TLX-positive neural stem cells in learning and behaviour. Nature 451:1004–1007

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Chiasson AD (2016) Geothermal Heat Pump and Heat Engine Systems. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Rustemeyer T, Elsner P, John S-M, Maibach HI (2012) Kanerva’s Occupational Dermatology, 2nd ed. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Graw V, Husmann C (2014) Mapping Marginality Hotspots. In: von Braun J, Gatzweiler FW (eds) Marginality: Addressing the Nexus of Poverty, Exclusion and Ecology. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 69–83

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Acta Geotechnica.

Blog post

Andrew E (2015) Mars: Contamination, Planetary Protection And The Search For Life. In: IFLScience. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office (2005) Vehicle Safety: Opportunities Exist to Enhance NHTSA’s New Car Assessment Program. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Childers JW (2017) Evaluating parental opinions of healthy snack guidelines for youth soccer. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Gladstone R, Specia M (2017) At the U.N., Pressure Builds on Myanmar Over a ‘Human Rights Nightmare.’ New York Times A4

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1, 2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Acta Geotechnica
Abbreviation	Acta Geotech.
ISSN (print)	1861-1125
ISSN (online)	1861-1133
Scope	Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous) Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology